One of the Legopian Alliance's most prestigious military training facilities is the Academy of Defense. It trains minifigs of all styles and technology levels in the art of destroying things. Every time a class graduates, they celebrate by splitting up into teams and beating the crap out of each other in an academy-wide tournament. In fact, this tournament is one of the main reasons the ban on nonlethal weaponry was lifted.

The first battle of the 2009 tournament is a game of Capture the Princess, between the mostly low-tech Legion of Barbaria and The Order of the Shining Aegis.

Order of the Shining Aegis:
The rank-and-file troops are three heavy infantry, three light infantry, and three archers. Front and center is the Order's hero, Sunny McDorfington. In front of the goal waits the dual-broomstick-wielding War Witch, and alongside Sunny is the Azure Knight Mecha.

Legion of Barbaria:
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The Legion's hero, Major-General Ulfgar, stands in front of five Viking Warriors. To their left, the fire mage Mungu is protected by a Barbaribot. To their right are three mounted skeletons. Atop the battlements is a Trebuchet.

The first team to get the princess through its goal posts wins. If either team kills the princess, they automatically lose.

Turn 1: Legion of Barbaria

As the Legion advances, Mungu sets the Trebuchet's boulder on fire.

Turn 1: Order of the Shining Aegis

Sunny McDorfington orders his troops to stay out of the trebuchet's huge attack range. It will cripple the Order's movement, and make it difficult to grab the Princess. What kind of pansy commander is he?

The Azure Knight opens fire on the lead skeleton, destroying it.

The War Witch takes to the air and enchants the Azure Knight with increased speed. It will last three turns.

Turn 2: Legion of Barbaria

A skeleton knight smashes the Azure Knight's windshield, taking off the pilot's head.

The Azure Knight doesn't need a pilot! It destroys the skeleton with a swing of its lance.

The final skeleton grabs the princess and prepares to head back.

Mungu causes a fire blast right under her, sending her and Barbaribot flying towards the frontlines to protect the skeleton. Fortunately, they're both immune to fire.

Sunny McDorfington, seeing his plan will pay off next turn, orders his heavy infantry to advance. The Light Infantry get ready to back them up.

Mungu is incapacitated by a volley of arrows. There's much celebration.

The War Witch flies up to the skeleton, force-pulling him and the princess back to Order lines.

The Azure Knight charges at Ulfgar and his Vikings. Ulfgar dodges the attack and takes off the Azure Knight's lance with a cliche blade rush.

It doesn't stop the charge, though. Two Vikings are squished.

A Heavy Infantry winds up to finish off the stunned skeleton, falling backwards under the weight of his halberd.

Turn 2: Legion of Barbaria

Mungu's flaming boulder had sat in the trebuchet's basket since the beginning of Turn 1. The trebuchet, built mostly out of wood and cord, catches fire. Had the Order moved within range, they would have fired the boulder before the trebuchet had time to catch.

The crew still manage to get one shot off, and what a shot. The Azure Knight is destroyed.

As the skeleton's old mount gets up, Major General Ulfgar hops on. The remaining Vikings rally beside him. The Heavy Infantry manage to repel the Vikings and Barbaribot, with no casualties on either side.

The skeleton turns the tables on its would-be slayer, taking him out while he's down.

Ulfgar takes advantage of his Vikings' distraction to slip in and scoop up the princess. The princess is pleased to have finally been rescued by someone noble.

Turn 2: Order of the Shining Aegis

Sunny McDorfington moves to intercept Ulfgar, but can't get an attack off since the princess is being used as a human shield. The princess is significantly less pleased.

The War Witch moves to slay the vikings in one go. Unfortunately, her attack is too short-range and has too small a radius to accomplish anything at all.

The Order's Heavy Infantry strike back at the Vikings, accomplishing nothing.

Turn 3: Legion of BarbariaThe Vikings are hiding behind their shields. It makes them hard to kill, but it makes them fail once again at defeating any of the enemy.

Major General Ulfgar, Seeing the battle going nowhere, leaps past the Order's troops and gallops for his goal posts.

Turn 3: Order of the Shining Aegis

The War Witch strikes again, taking Ulfgar out of the game. The Princess bails out before being electrocuted.

Barbaribot, seeing its allies are finished anyways, self-destructs. The remaining Heavy Infantry and one Light Infantry go down in the blast. Sunny, despite being right beside it, shrugs the explosion off. It takes a lot more than being directly beside a 4" wide explosion to kill a Dwarf hero, apparantly.

With their trebuchet reduced to cinders, the Legion's last two troops surrender.

Turn 3: PrincessFirst a skeleton grabs the princess, then she's force-pulled off a horse, used as a meatshield, and now almost KOed by an insane mage. She's had just about enough.

As the War Witch lets her guard down and flies down to scoop the princess up, she smashes the War Witch to the ground with Ulfgar's claymore, bringing it to her throat before she can move.

The Princess takes one of the War Witch's brooms and flies off for parts unknown.

Aftermath:

After some deliberation, the judges declare the match a tie. Since the Order completed the secondary objective "Destroy and humiliate the opposing team", they'll be the ones to move on in the tournament. If any other matches end in a draw, the Legion will rejoin the tournament and go against them.
No minifigs or creations were harmed playing this game of Capture the Princess. Not even the ones decapitated, burned to ashes, or crushed by a boulder. A wizard did it.

Post-Battle Notes:
-We were just about to get an actual plot going in these battles. Unfortunately, the next battle is 300 CP, and my brother has much more of a life than me (And detests generic units, so anything he builds will take a while). To stave off the withdrawl, I did this single-player battle. You can likely expect some more filler later on down the road, depending on how much me and my brother feel like BrikWars. I've already got a general idea of the entire tournament bracket.
-Most of the unique minifigs and creations were "reserves" I built whenever I was inspired, but Ulfgar was entirely new.
-Special thanks to my brother for loaning me his awesome trebuchet (It really works!). I was having serious trouble thinking of a suitable "Big guy" for the Legion.
-I didn't bother with CP for balancing this one, since it was so much about the princess anyway. It seemed basically balanced, but with Mungu (the queen of poorly thought-out spells) KOed so early, the Legion really had no defense against the War Witch. The Legion's other advantages, the skeletons and the trebuchet, also never got a chance to shine.
-Since this was a nonlethal battle, I spent most of the time writing this coming up with more euphemisms for "kill".
-Did you find Neenja? This time, he was hiding in the trebuchet's ashes.
-I used every video game case we had for the battlefield, then moved on to movies. The battlefield's main purpose, aside from looking cool, was to stop rampant charging. It could get the princess back too quickly. This ended up making the War Witch even more powerful, since she could just charge above the terrain.
-The War Witch had the exact same pose for every one of her spells, but it just looked so cool.
-I'm really happy with how the War Witch's lightning turned out. Not so much the bolt, which I still can't really get right, as the white blur. Will need to keep that trick in mind.
-Ulfgar's cape was actually an inside-out Harry Potter cape. You can see the stars in the picture where he gets electrocuted. All our normal black capes were taken.
-I friggin' love Mages. Supernatural powers are like heroic feats, except more consistent and safe. Both of this battle's mages managed all their mischief with just 3 SP.
-Just like the Legopian Alliance, the Order of the Shining Aegis give themselves a good-aligned sounding name for the sole purpose of confusing casual observers.
-The princess isn't even competent. When the end of the battle came, I was practically screaming at the d4 to turn up 4 so she could do that. It did.

Last edited by Doopliss on Sat Dec 26, 2009 8:05 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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